West Valley Preps' Goodyear/Litchfield cross country preview

The high school boys and girls cross country season began Aug. 27 at schools across the state.
West Valley Preps and the Litchfield/Goodyear Independent asked local high school coaches about their teams. Here are their responses.

Canyon View Jaguars

Boys and girls coach: Angela Janssen (sixth year at Canyon View)
Section: Division II Northwest (Boys finished 16th and girls finished sixth in Division II)
Who are your top returning runners? Female top returners: Taelyn Janssen, Peyton-Rae Isaac ad Jayda Reynoso. Male top returners: Chase VanHooser, Angel Esparza.
Who are some of the newcomers that may have an impact this year? Girls: Reid Barisich, Juliana Acosta. Boys: Daniel Hernandez
What is your team’s best attribute entering this season? Our girls team is young and they love to compete. Our boys team is definitely in a rebuilding year but they have lots of fun together and I think that can carry over to running for each other in races. 

Millennium Tigers

Boys and girls coach: Jim Rafferty (eighth year at Millennium)
Section: Division I Southwest
Who are your top returning runners? Boys top 5 returners are: Daniel Pimental, Jacob DeLaGarza, Lexus Garcia, Ashton Paul and Jorge Ascencio. Girls top 5 returners are: Alexis Jimenez, Azul Ortega, Seleena Saavedra Natalia Lopez and Rebecca Butler.
Who are some of the newcomers that may have an impact this year? Garyah Reed and Caleb Junas for the boys, Isabella Flores and Sadie Smith for the girls
What is your team’s best attribute entering this season? Team culture. We have 60 total athletes, 33 boys and 27 girls. The focus of personal growth and development has created a culture that kids are attracted to and our numbers keep growing every year.
What are the primary goals for this year’s team? last year was a rebuilding year for us, losing all of our varsity boys and almost all of our varsity girls from the previous year.  At the same time we bumped up to Division 1, and were faced with the most competitive sectional meet for D1.  Both teams missed qualifying for state for the first time in my tenure at MHS.  We had never missed state qualifying and had won the DII boys team and girl’s individual title the prior year.  The boys only missed by 3 points.  And although we had three boys and two girls make it individually, it wasn’t the team qualifying we were hoping for.  This year w